Tokkemon Posted August 20, 2012 Share #176 Posted August 20, 2012 I don't see it changing very much in the future, with the consistent stream of television misinformation and the polarization of the Republican party into the radical Tea Partiers. The constant stretch for "centrism" is hurting us too: networks report "both sides" to every story, when in reality it's often the case that one side is absolutely nuts -- yet they still get airtime. Bipartisanship is a polite word for throwing away all your beliefs to work with a bunch of idiots. Wow, that was a completely objective analysis on the situation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MHV9218 Posted August 21, 2012 Share #177 Posted August 21, 2012 and what about the radical socialists in the democratic party? joe 28% of Republicans are radical Tea Partiers. I dare you to name an organized group of "radical socialists" in the Democratic party with numbers anything like that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shortline Bus Posted August 21, 2012 Author Share #178 Posted August 21, 2012 In the news this morning (8/21/12)over the weekend, the Moderators for the National debates (three for commander in chief & 1 for VP) were announced. For the presdential ones which includes a televised session at Long Island's Hofstra Univ. the hosts are Jim Lehrer (PBS), Bob Schieffer (CBS), Candy Crowley(CNN) and Martha Raddatz(ABC). The controveries has already begun for the following complaints: 1)No Black, Latino or Asian mods or panelists. 2)None are from Fox News, MSNBC/NBC News, AP or Univision 3)No 3rd party canadiates. 4)All of the Mods/Panelists are White. So is this side story being foucused on too much guys? http://www.huffingto...html?ref=topbar Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tokkemon Posted August 21, 2012 Share #179 Posted August 21, 2012 Considering it's the huffington post, yes it is being WAY over-analysed. Let em yell at each other. BTW, points 1 and 4 are kinda the same, yet again, so are 2 and 3. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Via Garibaldi 8 Posted August 21, 2012 Share #180 Posted August 21, 2012 Considering it's the huffington post, yes it is being WAY over-analysed. Let em yell at each other. BTW, points 1 and 4 are kinda the same, yet again, so are 2 and 3. How are points 2 and 3 kind of the same??? One point is about news networks, while the other is about third party candidates... Two very different things... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shortline Bus Posted August 21, 2012 Author Share #181 Posted August 21, 2012 How are points 2 and 3 kind of the same??? One point is about news networks, while the other is about third party candidates... Two very different things... Being fair IMO if a 3rd party canadidate is on the ballot in all 50 states, then they should be in the debates period. I remember around 2000 (Bush vs Gore) Ralph Nader was either in 46-48 states. Last time and only time in tv debate era (since 1960) has a 3rd party canadiate was in the 1992 debates featuring Billionarie Businessman Russ Perot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Via Garibaldi 8 Posted August 21, 2012 Share #182 Posted August 21, 2012 Being fair IMO if a 3rd party canadidate is on the ballot in all 50 states, then they should be in the debates period. I remember around 2000 (Bush vs Gore) Ralph Nader was either in 46-48 states. Last time and only time in tv debate era (since 1960) has a 3rd party canadiate was in the 1992 debates featuring Billionarie Businessman Russ Perot. Well quite frankly they should be on the ballot in all 50 states. It is nothing but the Democrats and Republicans trying to limit choice with the stupid two party system. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shortline Bus Posted August 21, 2012 Author Share #183 Posted August 21, 2012 Well quite frankly they should be on the ballot in all 50 states. It is nothing but the Democrats and Republicans trying to limit choice with the stupid two party system. Lets say it nice and loud everyone it's a modern monopoly. In 2000 if you remember Ralph Nader was on ballot in about 47-48 states(some say he "stole" votes from Gore's Liberal base)and IMO that close enough he should been in the Gore/Bush debates. In this election of '12, there no major 3rd canadiate that should be in the debate though. Back to article. While ideally diversity is important, as a voter/media person myself, I am more concerned that Crowley, Schieffer, Lerher etc. will be tough but fair and ask legit headline questions from the economy to middle east issues, etc in this race. And NO BS from either Obama or Romney either. To issues not in the headlines this year, but also very important such as education and infrastructure/highway and mass transit plans to rebulid also being addresed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Q10 Airport Posted August 22, 2012 Share #184 Posted August 22, 2012 The Huff Post overanalyzes this story. The bottom line is that the chosen moss are tough but fair to both candidates, something some of the Fox News and MSNBC people wouldn't do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phantom909 Posted August 22, 2012 Share #185 Posted August 22, 2012 28% of Republicans are radical Tea Partiers. I dare you to name an organized group of "radical socialists" in the Democratic party with numbers anything like that. anybody who supports obama is a radical socialist. so that would be about 75%. so the tea party, who wants to reign in this out of control spending, and make the federal government stick to the enumerated powers the constitution gives the federal government is radical, but the man who took the oath to support and defend the constitution, yet violates it with his refusal to enforce the laws of the country, appoints czars as recess appointments when congress was not in recess, fails to secure the border among other things isnt radical? whether you like it or not, the constitution is the law of the land, you can change it by using the ammenment process, but obama and his socialist drones want to rule by executive fiat, which sir is a dictatorship. that my friend is radical joe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orion VII 4 Life Posted August 22, 2012 Share #186 Posted August 22, 2012 anybody who supports obama is a radical socialist. so that would be about 75%. so the tea party, who wants to reign in this out of control spending, and make the federal government stick to the enumerated powers the constitution gives the federal government is radical, but the man who took the oath to support and defend the constitution, yet violates it with his refusal to enforce the laws of the country, appoints czars as recess appointments when congress was not in recess, fails to secure the border among other things isnt radical? whether you like it or not, the constitution is the law of the land, you can change it by using the ammenment process, but obama and his socialist drones want to rule by executive fiat, which sir is a dictatorship. that my friend is radical joe Post of the day right there! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MHV9218 Posted August 22, 2012 Share #187 Posted August 22, 2012 anybody who supports obama is a radical socialist. so that would be about 75%. so the tea party, who wants to reign in this out of control spending, and make the federal government stick to the enumerated powers the constitution gives the federal government is radical, but the man who took the oath to support and defend the constitution, yet violates it with his refusal to enforce the laws of the country, appoints czars as recess appointments when congress was not in recess, fails to secure the border among other things isnt radical? whether you like it or not, the constitution is the law of the land, you can change it by using the ammenment process, but obama and his socialist drones want to rule by executive fiat, which sir is a dictatorship. that my friend is radical joe I give up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shortline Bus Posted August 22, 2012 Author Share #188 Posted August 22, 2012 Shifting gears. The Republican Convention which starts on Sunday 8/26/12 that will offically pick Mitt Romney as the GOP Challenger to Barack Obama maybe upstaged by an unwelcome guest. Hurricane Isaac. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/tropical-storm-isaac-expected-a-hurricane-forecast-republicans-tampa-convention-unknown-article-1.1142153 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shortline Bus Posted August 26, 2012 Author Share #189 Posted August 26, 2012 Well because of threat of Hurricane Issac in the Fla. region, the start of 2012 GOP Convention has been delayed to Tuesday. Not related to storm but IMO the Democratic and GOP conventions should be cut to say a 3-day weekend. The nomatied canadiates are now usually deceided by the lastest by May, end of Primary season. Start it on Friday and end it on Sunday, giving the party nomiee, access to the most watched evening of the week for tv viewers. Plus with the costs of security these days to hold these events, it would save *taxpayers* millions of dollars each day to cut it back from it's current 5 or so days, What you guys think? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tokkemon Posted August 26, 2012 Share #190 Posted August 26, 2012 Nah. I'm sure the parties like the overdone politicization of the election. Surely we can't fit all those biased speeches into three nights! And on a weekend, no less!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shortline Bus Posted August 26, 2012 Author Share #191 Posted August 26, 2012 Nah. I'm sure the parties like the overdone politicization of the election. Surely we can't fit all those biased speeches into three nights! And on a weekend, no less!! Tokkemon you make a good point. However the current American presidential election season is now way too long. The campaign now takes place for almost 1 1/2 year (starting the summer the previous year) to election the following November. IMO by having it on the weekend the free tv networks will be more likely to show most of the conventions. That instead of currently only the last night when the party nomiees are given their campaign speechs. Not counting C-Span and the cable news channels. That why a 3-day convention makes a whole lot of sense. Plus most important less taxpayer $$$ on security. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tokkemon Posted August 26, 2012 Share #192 Posted August 26, 2012 Here's an idea: Make it like Canada where an election is called at a moment's notice, the candidates have 3 months to pitch to their districts, and then the people vote! It's so much more a gauge of the people's representative opinion on the politicians since there simply isn't enough time for them to be swayed by immense amounts of ads or pandering in the press. Sure, Canadian press has its party biases too, but it's no where near as effective as in America where Fox News is demonized by the left every 10 seconds and MSNBC touts the liberal position ever 12.4 seconds. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tokkemon Posted August 26, 2012 Share #193 Posted August 26, 2012 Also, the parties are limited on the amount they can spend by Elections Canada, something like 70 cents per constituent in a district. Of course, this is a parliamentary system so the dynamics are a bit different. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shortline Bus Posted August 26, 2012 Author Share #194 Posted August 26, 2012 Also, the parties are limited on the amount they can spend by Elections Canada, something like 70 cents per constituent in a district. Of course, this is a parliamentary system so the dynamics are a bit different. Here's an idea: Make it like Canada where an election is called at a moment's notice, the candidates have 3 months to pitch to their districts, and then the people vote! It's so much more a gauge of the people's representative opinion on the politicians since there simply isn't enough time for them to be swayed by immense amounts of ads or pandering in the press. Sure, Canadian press has its party biases too, but it's no where near as effective as in America where Fox News is demonized by the left every 10 seconds and MSNBC touts the liberal position ever 12.4 seconds. Not a bad idea Tokkemon but changing the US election system for President that you proposed wont happen at least in my lifetime. Hell America still has IMO the stupid 'electoral college" which should be scrapped for simple majority winner take all voted directly by the people. Thus it's reason we stuck with the clown and clueless monopoly system of the party system here. Lets take it step at a time Tokkemon in first getting rid of the electoral college before we go deeper into other changes . The other change in electing a President would be in years of national elections(Commander in Chief and mid term elections)the whole country votes with same hours regardless of time zones. Is it fair someone in Hawaii is voting and the cable news channels/networks and AP have announced who won the election? There a couple of things Tokkemon in the UK/Canada system of elections IMO that the US should adopt asap. One would requiring all of the free over the air commerical broadcast stations and cable news channels, i.e ABC, MSNBC/NBC, CBS, CNN and Fox/Fox News in last 2 days before the elections in midterm and presidential years *must provide free air time* to all major party contenders. That alone would save tens of millions of dollars and help a bit to prevent canadiates from being influenced by major money donors and thus more likely for scandals. The other would be to allow voters option on election days(post offices would be open from 6am-Midnight thus saving money on hiring election workers/machines)to mail-in their ballots no question or reason needed. That alone would get many new voters. Of course they would be security measures needed to prevent fraud, but another idea. Those are the reasonable steps to moderize the American national election system that wont be laughed and rejected by some who like the nation to still use paper ballots to votes instead of the slow switch to computrized voting. Reactions? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grand Concourse Posted August 26, 2012 Share #195 Posted August 26, 2012 Also, the parties are limited on the amount they can spend by Elections Canada, something like 70 cents per constituent in a district. Of course, this is a parliamentary system so the dynamics are a bit different. It is just appalling to see ~$1 billion+ spent just for campaigning. Obviously the person that wins the office is the most powerful person on the earth, but there's no way to justify all that money spent on ads and stuff. Decadence at its worst... You ain't a man of the ppl when it costs $40k for a seat at a table. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tokkemon Posted August 26, 2012 Share #196 Posted August 26, 2012 The reason the Electoral College exists is because each state is considered a distinct entity in this country, not just another level of government. Sure, the federal government oversees all of them and their laws apply to all of them, but States have an INCREDIBLE amount of individual power which is quite unique for any country on earth. But not all states are created equal. Some are small, some big, in both land area and population. Is it really fair that Rhode Island should have to compete with New York when it has 1/10 of the population? This is why the two houses of congress are elected for different district sizes and population centers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grand Concourse Posted August 26, 2012 Share #197 Posted August 26, 2012 I still don't like the way the EC is set up where you have the 3 big states: NY, Texas, CA all going to one of the 2 parties. I wished it were split based on proportions. I mean I'm sure there must be some differences in opinion and allow some of the votes to go to the opposing candidate... Yes I also understand the idea is to give the 'lesser' states a voice in the matter, but if candidate a gets the 2 big states, then that's already a big chunk of the votes already and it won't matter how many of the smaller states bans together to counter those big states. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shortline Bus Posted August 26, 2012 Author Share #198 Posted August 26, 2012 The reason the Electoral College exists is because each state is considered a distinct entity in this country, not just another level of government. Sure, the federal government oversees all of them and their laws apply to all of them, but States have an INCREDIBLE amount of individual power which is quite unique for any country on earth. But not all states are created equal. Some are small, some big, in both land area and population. Is it really fair that Rhode Island should have to compete with New York when it has 1/10 of the population? This is why the two houses of congress are elected for different district sizes and population centers. The way the current EC is set up right now, the canadiates *never* stop and campaign (except during the primaries) in Rhode Island and other smaller states anyway. This has also hurts even the bigger population states i.e Texas, NY state, Calif, etc. since they are strongholds for one of the two sides. Thus it unfair that in 2012, 90% of the visits between Romney and Obama between end of the conventions and election day will be spent in 8-10 'battleground' states. Is that a fair system either with a winner take it ec in most of the country? Although canning the ec would be my first choice(along with many people)i also like grand concourse's "compromise" on proportions almost the same as what used during the primary season. If Canadiate wins for instance Fla. by a 50%-40% and since they 29 EC votes Mr. gets 19 EC Votes and Mr. gets 10. That a much fairer system and closer to a direct vote. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grand Concourse Posted August 26, 2012 Share #199 Posted August 26, 2012 exactly ^. The EC is flawed. But with how you might have some voting fraud with the populist vote, I don't see the EC ever going away. But the EC could be improved if it were made as close to proportional to the individual votes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phantom909 Posted August 26, 2012 Share #200 Posted August 26, 2012 exactly ^. The EC is flawed. But with how you might have some voting fraud with the populist vote, I don't see the EC ever going away. But the EC could be improved if it were made as close to proportional to the individual votes. Actually since 1972 Maine and since 1996 Nebraska have used a "Congressional District"method where the presidential candidate gets one electoral vote for each district won, and the candidate who wins the most districts gets the 2 additional electoral votes. I feel that every state should adopt this instead of winner take all Joe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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